Capitalism is good at meeting many of our wants but has "big blind spots when it comes to others," such as family relationships, a sense of community. Capitalism, by unleashing rapid changes in technology, business organization, and social and economic status, sometimes undermines institutions and systems of beliefs that evolved in quieter and more slow-paced times or cultures. Sometimes this is good, as when capitalism helped end slavery and elevated the status of women. At other times, however, such creative destruction is thought to undermine widely shared values. One of the structural and natural moral weaknesses of capitalism as a system is that the creativity, inventiveness, and questioning spirit that make it

dynamic have a moral downside and impose a heavy human cost, sometimes even on top executives and investors. Recognizing the challenge capitalism presents to some of our traditional notions of morality does not mean that capitalism is an immoral way to organize an economy.

Gordon

Gordon

Cover of the "Sonderausgabe" 1934 edition of Die p...

The most common error made by critics of capitalism is failing to recognize that greed or ambition (the desire to gain power or distinction without regard to its effects on others) long predates capitalism. Greed, Max Weber wrote in 1904, "exists and has existed among waiters, physicians, coachmen, artists, prostitutes, dishonest officials, soldiers, nobles, crusaders, gamblers, and beggars. One may say that it has been common to all sorts and conditions of men at all times and in all countries of the earth, wherever the objective possibility of it is or has been given." (6Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons) (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958). All political and economic systems must cope with greed. Societies that rely on tradition to shape their economies allow some people--usually those with inherited...

More Government essays:

... of business. Capitalism allows power to be placed in the hands of a few and the companies who have it abuse their power to limit the competition. This style of business-management is unfair to small-businesses trying to make a living or companies with new ...

... in a nursing home is nine times greater than that of a single dependent child. The price of medical care, in general, has drastically increased. Expensive new technology and procedures are a large part of this increase. The need for these costly new ...

7 pages317May/19964.2

Students & Profs. say about us:

"Good news: you can turn to other's writing help. WriteWork has over 100,000 sample papers"